Silicon Valley Bank crisis impacts 116-year-old co-operative bank in Mumbai

The Silicon Valley Bank crisis has hit markets, banks and most importantly start-ups across the globe. But, with the addition of the misinformation the crisis has also affected banks and companies that are not really connected to the lender. One of these unexpected victims is SVC Co-operative Bank, a 116-year-old bank in Mumbai.

The Mumbai-based bank has been receiving a series of queries from customers who are concerned about the lender's financial health. The real reason for this panic among customers is the misinformation being spread through WhatsApp and social media. These messages confused the acronym of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) to SVC Co-operative Bank.

The bank formerly known as Shamrao Vithal Co-operative Bank had to issue an clarification assuring the customers and stakeholders that they had no resemblance with SVB. The statement on Twitter said "SVC bank is completely unrelated to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) that was based in California. We request our members, customers and other stakeholders not to pay attention to baseless rumors and mischief-mongering by unscrupulous elements insinuating similarities in brand names."

They also clarified that they are multi-state scheduled urban co-operative bank with operations only limited to India. They also specified that their total business was of over Rs 31,500 crore and a net profit of over Rs 146 crore in the last financial year. They also said that the bank will take legal action on 'rumor mongers for tarnishing its brand image.'

Responding to this tweet, ZyppElectric CEO Akash Gupta wrote, ""The next might be SLB (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) putting out a statement on the matter. India is amazing."

Silicon Valley Bank Crisis

The SVB crisis started on Wednesday when its parent company announced the sale of $21 billion of its securities that were a part of the company's portfolio. WIthin 48 hours the high-tech lenders share prices fell down and hit the markets globally.

Since then things went downhill with SVB being shuttered on Friday by California banking regulators. After that, close to $175 billion of the bank's customer deposits are under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC. The FDIC has assured depositors that they will have complete access to their insured deposits after the branches of the bank open again on Monday morning.